Why are there no famous indies similar to Mario 2D?

Glio · Jul 2, 2018

thomasmahler said:
Because you assume that it's easy enough for an indie developer to just make a 'Mario-like' game that could rival the stuff Nintendo did - even the stuff from 30 years ago - and I can tell you it's just not. Mario is all about good level design and level design is an artform that most designers out there just haven't mastered at all. We've had designers with tons of experience go through our tests (everyone who wants to work at Moon Studios has to do a quick test so we can check their skills) and a lot of them just aren't that great at designing spaces in the way Nintendo can. It's actually an incredibly rare talent. There's tons of designers out there who THINK they can do it, cause it looks oh so simple, but once they actually have to sit their butts down and design in that way, a lot of them suffer and stumble their way through it and the result more often than not leaves a lot to be desired.

I would bet that there's way less than 100 people in the entire western gaming industry that understand design in that way. Compare the indie output in terms of platformers from the last 10 years to games like Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World - if you understand a thing or two about design, you'll probably notice that there's a huge gap in quality between them. This is really a field where technology doesn't help you at all: Just cause we got better computers doesn't mean that anybody will do the design work for you and even though you'd think people have studied Nintendo's output and the way they do things over the years, most of them can't deliver on anywhere even near that level of quality.

If you look at the current AAA industry, I think you'll see what I mean: None of the big AAA games truly bank on good level design because (and this is me saying something controversial that really shouldn't be) most of these studios don't really have designers that are all that great and that could make successful games that are reliant upon good level design. The way most studios handle level design is more about spectacle, working a lot with environment artists to create 'interest', using open world terrain tools so that they don't have to labor over every inch, etc. - All the successful western AAA studios make games that work despite, not because of their level design. This is also why most western devs out there still love Nintendo's output, cause they're clearly better in many regards than they themselves are and there's still a lot to learn from them. Here's my super controversial bet: Even if you'd take the absolute best designers from places like, say, Naughty Dog and task them to create a game as good as Super Mario Bros. 3, I'd bet that they couldn't do it. You need a certain breed of designers that understand design on the level those Nintendo folks did and that kinda talent mostly doesn't exist in the current industry.

Thank you very much for the reply!

More_Badass · Jul 2, 2018

thomasmahler said:
Because you assume that it's easy enough for an indie developer to just make a 'Mario-like' game that could rival the stuff Nintendo did - even the stuff from 30 years ago - and I can tell you it's just not. Mario is all about good level design and level design is an artform that most designers out there just haven't mastered at all. We've had designers with tons of experience go through our tests (everyone who wants to work at Moon Studios has to do a quick test so we can check their skills) and a lot of them just aren't that great at designing spaces in the way Nintendo can. It's actually an incredibly rare talent. There's tons of designers out there who THINK they can do it, cause it looks oh so simple, but once they actually have to sit their butts down and design in that way, a lot of them suffer and stumble their way through it and the result more often than not leaves a lot to be desired.

I would bet that there's way less than 100 people in the entire western gaming industry that understand design in that way. Compare the indie output in terms of platformers from the last 10 years to games like Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World - if you understand a thing or two about design, you'll probably notice that there's a huge gap in quality between them. This is really a field where technology doesn't help you at all: Just cause we got better computers doesn't mean that anybody will do the design work for you and even though you'd think people have studied Nintendo's output and the way they do things over the years, most of them can't deliver on anywhere even near that level of quality.

If you look at the current AAA industry, I think you'll see what I mean: None of the big AAA games truly bank on good level design because (and this is me saying something controversial that really shouldn't be) most of these studios don't really have designers that are all that great and that could make successful games that are reliant upon good level design. The way most studios handle level design is more about spectacle, working a lot with environment artists to create 'interest', using open world terrain tools so that they don't have to labor over every inch, etc. - All the successful western AAA studios make games that work despite, not because of their level design. This is also why most western devs out there still love Nintendo's output, cause they're clearly better in many regards than they themselves are and there's still a lot to learn from them. Here's my super controversial bet: Even if you'd take the absolute best designers from places like, say, Naughty Dog and task them to create a game as good as Super Mario Bros. 3, I'd bet that they couldn't do it. You need a certain breed of designers that understand design on the level those Nintendo folks did and that kinda talent mostly doesn't exist in the current industry.

I think it's a special kind of game that can really stand out due to level design, because I think it's one of those invisible masteries that stand out when it sucks or you don't actively notice when it's decent/good. There are only a few games I've played where the level design stood as something amazing in the same way an unique aesthetic or excellent sound design is very quickly noticed

I also think there's a difference between level design that molded around a specific mechanic or gameplay focus versus level design that is about freedom or options. Arkane and Looking Glass are excellent at the latter but that's a very different kind of design than Nintendo's mechanics-driven level design

Off the top of my head, the most recent game that instantly impressed as having genius level design is Stephen's Sausage Roll. Much like Mario is focused on the gameplay possibilities of the jump and the levels are designed around exploring that idea, SSR's levels are laser-focused around exploring what is possible with its simple set of mechanics. There were so many moments where I was just astounded by how well-designed the levels were and their designs were perfectly married with the mechanics and puzzle challenges

Poimandres · Jul 2, 2018

Suicide King said:
The problem is that Mario is very simple and charming, which is not easy to emulate. I'm not saying no indie 2D platforms can have simplicity or charm, but those are very subjective qualities that are very hard to perceive.

I find the NSMB series as bland as a piece of dry toast. Plenty of indies with far more charm in terms of presentation.

I do find it interesting people discussing how difficult and intensive it is to make a true Mario clone that stands up. How many people made Mario 3? That was 30 years ago. Seems wild that it's hard to approach for indie devs these days.

Edit: I just saw Thomas post. Great insight!

thomasmahler · Jul 2, 2018

Poimandres said:
I find the NSMB series as bland as a piece of dry toast. Plenty of indies with far more charm in terms of presentation.

I do find it interesting people discussing how difficult and intensive it is to make a true Mario clone that stands up. How many people made Mario 3? That was 30 years ago. Seems wild that it's hard to approach for indie devs these days.

Yeah, you'd think that Technology should've made it much easier nowadays to make a game like that, but that's only true for things like actually getting things rendered on screen, etc. - Design-wise, you're still on your own.

It's probably similar to film or other arts: You rarely see films that get made that are as good as The Godfather, even though cameras are much better and easier to handle today than they used to be. Technology didn't make it any easier to write a great novel, etc. (maybe a little more convenient, but the words still have to come solely from you).

SaidTheTickTockMan · Jul 2, 2018

Noisepurge said:
You run and jump on things? :D And i clarified my post later. But saying it's "nothing like 2d mario" is a stretch

They're about as similar as Halo is to Call of Duty (this isn't meant to be shade at either franchise). Both pairs are built around the same basic general way of interacting (platforming, first-person shooting), but they utilize vastly different mechanics and level design to create very distinct styles of play

MattWilsonCSS · Jul 2, 2018

Eversion! It's a very Mario style game and nothing else. Nothing else at all.

roguesquirrel · Jul 2, 2018

Glio said:
That's an urban legend, there was never such a demand and the original game copied entire levels.

Twisted Dreams is in the eshop.

no it was real and is why the c64 sequel got changed into a game starring robots on mars called Hard N Heavy because the giana sisters branding was too risky to reuse despite more platformers being on the market & not copying entire stages

Velocity:Design:Comfort · Jul 2, 2018

FairyEmpire said:
It seems to be a very hard thing to properly reproduce without going full-on plagiarism, let alone a quality game. Classic Mario is so simple in its movement system and its design, especially the first one, and yet it's basically perfect at what it does. I played a lot of Mario-inspired indies, but most of them had incoherent art styles, weird animations, and most importantly a movement system that didn't feel so good. Also the genre evolved, releasing an indie SMB1-clone, even if good, wouldn't be received too well because it's barebones. Nowadays people expect more from their platformers: deep meanings, hardcore level design, shittons of content, great animation, in some cases a cinematic presentation (see Limbo and Inside) and so on. The original Super Mario Bros. games perfected that simple formula so well that it's hard to make a game that does that but equally good or better, without feeling like a whole new subgenre altogether. Very much like Doom: no matter how great Heretic, Hexen, Blood, Duke Nukem 3D, etc. felt, that original Doom formula aged so much better than those "clones", because Doom was like the maximum expression of that concept.

But that is a bad example becauae we are successful unique invented doom likes and build engine games all the time (that one in vr that has pixel textures, ion maiden)

sph3re · Jul 2, 2018

Braid?

Poimandres · Jul 2, 2018

thomasmahler said:
Yeah, you'd think that Technology should've made it much easier nowadays to make a game like that, but that's only true for things like actually getting things rendered on screen, etc. - Design-wise, you're still on your own.

It's probably similar to film or other arts: You rarely see films that get made that are as good as The Godfather, even though cameras are much better and easier to handle today than they used to be. Technology didn't make it any easier to write a great novel, etc. (maybe a little more convenient, but the words still have to come solely from you).

Let me just say that your teams dedication to understanding game design shines through strongly in Ori!

thomasmahler · Jul 2, 2018

Also, if you play with numbers, it actually becomes even more clear that for an indie developer, copying something like Mario can be really goddamn difficult to achieve.

For example, a 'room' for Ori usually takes our designers between 1-3 days to bring to final - And I'd like to think that we've gotten pretty damn good at it. A room in Ori is probably only half or a quarter of the size of a level in Mario Bros. 3 in terms of scale. And this estimate is just for the design blockout, we're not even talking about art yet. That's usually another 3-5 days to set dress and that's if you already have the art tiles painted.

Since Mario usually has more simplistic art, let's be very optimistic and say you can finalize an entire level in a week - that's for design AND art. That's probably an extremely optimistic estimate since really getting something to final can be super hard and you'll re-work things very often in the process of making a game. So the actual number would probalby be more like 2 weeks, but let's be very optimistic just for the sake of it.

A world in Mario usually consists of around 10 levels. Let's say there's 8 worlds - We're now at 80 levels. So just to put the levels together, you're looking at 80 weeks of work, 1.5 years of work if you work every single day in a year without taking any vacations. That's 1.5 years of work just for levels and we're at an extremely optimistic estimate. If you now factor in that you also have to design and program all the mechanics, enemies, bonus stages, bosses, powerups and so on, I think it quickly becomes apparent that a small indie dev that only has 1-2 designers would have a massive task ahead of them.

MetalLord · Jul 2, 2018

thomasmahler said:
Because you assume that it's easy enough for an indie developer to just make a 'Mario-like' game that could rival the stuff Nintendo did - even the stuff from 30 years ago - and I can tell you it's just not. Mario is all about good level design and level design is an artform that most designers out there just haven't mastered at all. We've had designers with tons of experience go through our tests (everyone who wants to work at Moon Studios has to do a quick test so we can check their skills) and a lot of them just aren't that great at designing spaces in the way Nintendo can. It's actually an incredibly rare talent. There's tons of designers out there who THINK they can do it, cause it looks oh so simple, but once they actually have to sit their butts down and design in that way, a lot of them suffer and stumble their way through it and the result more often than not leaves a lot to be desired.

I would bet that there's way less than 100 people in the entire western gaming industry that understand design in that way. Compare the indie output in terms of platformers from the last 10 years to games like Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World - if you understand a thing or two about design, you'll probably notice that there's a huge gap in quality between them. This is really a field where technology doesn't help you at all: Just cause we got better computers doesn't mean that anybody will do the design work for you and even though you'd think people have studied Nintendo's output and the way they do things over the years, most of them can't deliver on anywhere even near that level of quality.

If you look at the current AAA industry, I think you'll see what I mean: None of the big AAA games truly bank on good level design because (and this is me saying something controversial that really shouldn't be) most of these studios don't really have designers that are all that great and that could make successful games that are reliant upon good level design. The way most studios handle level design is more about spectacle, working a lot with environment artists to create 'interest', using open world terrain tools so that they don't have to labor over every inch, etc. - All the successful western AAA studios make games that work despite, not because of their level design. This is also why most western devs out there still love Nintendo's output, cause they're clearly better in many regards than they themselves are and there's still a lot to learn from them. Here's my super controversial bet: Even if you'd take the absolute best designers from places like, say, Naughty Dog and task them to create a game as good as Super Mario Bros. 3, I'd bet that they couldn't do it. You need a certain breed of designers that understand design on the level those Nintendo folks did and that kinda talent mostly doesn't exist in the current industry.

But, there isnt hundreds and hundreds of good levels created by amateurs for Mario Maker ??

thomasmahler · Jul 2, 2018

MetalLord said:
But, there isnt hundreds and hundreds of good levels created by amateurs for Mario Maker ??

Well, the number of people who make 'professional' stuff in those content-creation games is usually at around 1% or less. If you've got a million folks making levels, that'd result in hunreds of good levels getting made :)

Deleted member 12790 · Jul 2, 2018

MetalLord said:
But, there isnt hundreds and hundreds of good levels created by amateurs for Mario Maker ??

Not really, no. I'd say Mario Maker actually proves that making really good mario levels is really tough. Most of what is on Mario Maker really isn't up to the series standards. The most memorable stuff seems to be rube goldberg-esq or outside the box style levels, not actual traditional mario levels. There aren't that man really good traditional mario levels up on Mario Maker. That's been a big problem of mine with it since the beginning.

Glio · Jul 2, 2018

MetalLord said:
But, there isnt hundreds and hundreds of good levels created by amateurs for Mario Maker ??

That's the equivalent of Infinite Monkey Theoreme.

If you put a million people for millions of hours, in the end some levels will be good, of course.

Kasey · Jul 2, 2018

Treasure Silvergun said:
The thing is, virtually nobody managed to make something as good as 2D Mario even when the gaming landscape was all about platformers and "Mario killers". Seems like it's incredibly difficult to make a 2D platformer interesting after all, much more than it is to make a passable "Metroidvania". This is also the reason why Nintendo themselves never completely recaptured the feeling of their classic Mario games when they came back to the formula with the NSMB series. If you can't make something that's at least as good as SMB3 - a 30 years old game - AND make it sufficiently original so it isn't just a carbon copy of Mario, don't bother.

Took the words from my mouth.

Still, I would like to see more mascot platformers from indie devs.

cardboardboxer · Jul 2, 2018

Glio said:
That's the equivalent of Infinite Monkey Theoreme.

If you put a million people for millions of hours, in the end some levels will be good, of course.

It helps if you don't have to worry about making money from your efforts like indie devs do. Mario Maker levels are all free time efforts as there is no way to easily monetize them.

I have long wondered if Mario Maker was just a sneaky way for "the crowd" to help Nintendo find the next Miyamoto.

(this is a fascinating thread BTW)

Why are there no famous indies similar to Mario 2D?

Glio

More_Badass

Poimandres

thomasmahler

Game Director at Moon Studios

SaidTheTickTockMan

MattWilsonCSS

roguesquirrel

Velocity:Design:Comfort

sph3re

One Winged Slayer

Poimandres

thomasmahler

Game Director at Moon Studios

MetalLord

thomasmahler

Game Director at Moon Studios

Deleted member 12790

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Glio

Kasey

cardboardboxer